


Outlines

by deadcultkid



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dimension Travel, Fantasy, Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 05:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15550632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadcultkid/pseuds/deadcultkid
Summary: I just wanted a normal vacation with my cousin Tabitha...





	Outlines

My cousin Tabitha and I wanted to go on vacation together, somewhere we’ve never been before. I grabbed my backpack, my cat Godiva, and my phone, as is necessary for all of my trips, and headed to the park. Tabby drove up in no time and I could see a few other girls in the back seats.  
“Hey, cousin!” she called, waving me over to the car. I got in, sitting Godiva on my lap, and hugged Tabby. I hadn’t seen her in years. “These are my friends.” she gestured to the waving girls, but didn’t tell me their names. I held my cat a bit closer as I waved back.  
“Hey, I’m Duncan.” the girls seemed like beams of sunshine as I introduced myself. “Hope it’s not weird for y’all having a guy come along with you.” the girls didn’t really speak much, but I could tell that my cousin had made friends with a group of what looked like weird horse loving girls. I looked over at Tabby and she gave me a nervous smile as we headed to the hostel.

A few hours later, we finally arrived. The hostel seemed bizarrely empty, but I could clearly see other visitors. We got to our room and settled in before I pulled a bag of weed out of my back pocket.   
“Tabby, lemme smoke you up.” my cousin not only laughed, but pulled an even bigger bag from her purse. I noticed that her product was brown, probably shitty weed, but she lives in a podunk town so it’s probably the best she could do. “Well, I guess I’ll smoke your friends up.” I turned to the girls who were all sitting on a bed together, I could tell they were extremely displeased. “Y’all ever smoked before?”  
“Smoking is bad.” it was like they were attempting to speak in unison, but everyone was just slightly out of sync with eachother. I rolled my eyes and laughed a bit.  
“Okay, have y’all ever smoked cigarettes?” a few of them nodded “It’s nothing like that. There’s no burn and you just get real relaxed.” at this point their objections sounded like a weird cacophony of chirps. I shrugged and turned back to my cousin who was already packing a bowl for herself. “I guess we’ll go on the balcony and smoke. No worries.” I said, looking back at the girls who were all eyeing my cat. I clicked my tongue and she ran over to me, almost glued to my leg.   
“We’re gonna go to the beach soon anyway, you guys can have some time to catch up.” one of the girls smiled an empty smile.

“I know my friends are a bit weird,” Tabitha admitted, blowing smoke over the balcony and looking off at the beach. The water was a dark navy blue and eerily still. I was slightly annoyed with her, but tried to hide it.  
“Tabby, it’s literally in the traveling rules. Go by twos or with a guide, don’t get friendly with locals, don’t go past The Hollow…” I had to pause, I didn’t want to ruin our trip “Why didn’t you at least bring Truffles?” I honestly hated her yappy little terrier, but rules are rules.  
“Well, she’s getting old...I tried, Duncan. I brought her on my first three trips. The first two, went by amazingly and I had a great time. The third one...I dunno if it was the place or just Truffles, but she just wasn’t on her game.”  
“Where were you?” Godiva had gotten down and gone to the balcony door, the girls had left.  
“Somewhere really warm and humid. It was dark and I could just feel that we were being watched.” I suddenly remembered my trip a few months ago.  
“I bumped into you I think? A few planes past?” I could see a flicker of remembrance in her eyes.  
“That was you! Oh my god.” she paused, packing another bowl “That place was fine, but Truffles and I went to this dark place. It was like a tunnel in a parking garage or something. There was something in there that followed us around.”  
“You went to the Hollow. Well, you went past it as soon as you bumped into me.” the water caught my eye as it slowly rippled. “You don’t go past the Hollow if your guide is below a level seven. You know Truffles is a level four.”  
“Fuck the whole guide thing, Duncan! My fucking dog jumped into the fucking Hollow!” Tabitha was now a bit frantic but I could see her trying to keep cool “I dunno what the fuck followed us, but after we got back home, Truffles just stared at the front door for days. Now she barely gets out of her bed.”  
“Tabby, nothing could have followed you. Locals aren’t allowed past any of our gateways.”  
“I don’t think it was a Local. I mean...it was local to the Hollow, maybe, but it didn’t feel like it belonged anywhere else we went.”  
“Nothing is local to the Hollow,” I put my pipe back in my backpack and called Godiva back into my lap. “The Hollow is one of the only vacant planes around.”  
“Duncan, it wasn’t vacant.”  
“No, I know that. The reason you bumped into me and Godiva is because she jumped into the Hollow as well. You know I’ve been on dozens of hundreds of trips around the planes. I’ve never been so scared in my entire life as I was in the Hollow.” Tabby took a few more hits before putting her pipe back in her purse.  
“We should’ve gone to Neon Beach.” she muttered, shaking her head.  
“Why did you choose here?” I asked, petting Godiva. I could see her emerald green eyes were locked onto the glass door again.   
“I dunno. I picked somewhere random. Didn’t know it would be this...weird. But, as long as there’s two of us, we should be fine.” she leaned over to give Godiva a few strokes. “Is she gonna get all chatty?”   
“She usually does, but I don’t think this place is gonna let her. She’d be talking by now.” Normally, Godiva would be purring at any kind of human interaction, but right now she was completely silent.   
“Isn’t she a level nine? She should be able to speak on any plane.” Tabitha was taking this whole thing way too nonchalantly and it was unsettling to say the least.  
“Tabitha, I don’t even know what plane we are on right now. I’ve never seen anything about this place, no files, visitation policies, nothing. You picked a plane past the fucking Hollow for a goddamn vacation!”   
“Well,” she sighed “maybe we can ask the Locals?”  
“You don’t trust Locals. Ever. And my translator is running a fucking ancient version of whatever native language it could pick up here, so they barely understand me as is.” I glanced over at her. “Tabitha, where are we?”   
“I don’t know, Duncan.” My cousin has always been a terrible liar.  
“In about thirty minutes, that sun is gonna go down and I don’t know if you remember hearing on the news about the family that went past the Hollow for some illegal shit, but they were fucking massacred by whatever in the fuck kind of locals are allowed out past curfew. Where the hell are we, Tab?” she looked back at our room through the window and waved at the girls.  
“Sapphire Hills.” I sighed and glanced over at her.  
“Sapphire Hills, huh?” I took my phone out, hoping to pull up my GPS, but its whole system was wrong. “Tab...I have an iPhone…” I kept a smile on my face and my tone neutral as I felt we were being watched. I turned my screen to her and showed her what looked like a horrible bootleg rendering of an old Android operating system. “Tabitha, my iPhone XF4 is running fucking KitKat. Tab, KitKat hasn’t been in use for at least 130 years...and it shouldn’t be running on my iPhone. What the hell is going on?” She opened her purse, looking at her own phone inside.  
“Mine’s running iOS 6…” I could feel my heart drop to my stomach.  
“What’s the name of this hostel?”  
“I dunno...my friends...they recommended it.” the sun was setting.  
“Tabitha, those aren’t friends. This is a trap.” I could see tears in her eyes as she nodded her head “I know you’re scared and you should be, but I need you to follow my directions. We’re gonna get our stuff, go back in there, tell those girls that we’re gonna get snacks. We find a neutral hostel or an embassy and we stay there for the night.” she nodded and we stood up, collecting our things and going back into the room with the girls.

 

“Are y’all hungry?” Tabitha asked, smiling at the group.  
“Oh, I could go for a milkshake or a burger!” One of the girls chimed out.   
“You know, I feel like we all got off on the wrong foot earlier.” I said, stepping in. “How about Tabby and I go get us some burgers?” the group nodded in a jerky, frantic way. “Where’s the best burger place around here?”  
“Rhuphis Lounge, down the street. Big orange sign, you can’t miss it.”  
“Alright, we’ll be right back.” I picked up Godiva and held her close.  
“Why’re you taking the kitty?” I wasn’t sure which one asked and God I didn’t wanna look at them to figure it out.  
“Oh, I just wanna get a walk in for her. Don’t want her to poop in our room.” I could hear a few distorted giggles as we left the room. I looked over at Tabitha who I could see had panic all over her face. “Breathe and walk. Don’t look at anyone. Don’t talk to anyone. Just walk.” I whispered, leading by example down the stairs. I could feel eyes on us, but I saw no one. We got out into the street and I felt a wave of relief wash over me. I looked down at Godiva who glanced up at me with those big eyes of hers.   
“Duncan, my phone is working again.”   
“Well, look up directions to an embassy or something.” I led her to the burger place we were told about.   
“I thought we were going to an embassy, there’s one a few blocks down.” I could hear a note of panic in her voice  
“Come inside and don’t speak.” We went in, I was the one that ordered since Tabitha was already on the verge of a panic attack. “When we leave back out, we’re gonna dip into the alley two stores down. Don’t speak, my translator is off, they can still understand you.” she nodded “I want you to look out the window, because some of your friends have been following us.” she turned her head and out of the corner of my eye I saw a blurry shape move back into the dark. She nodded again and smiled at me. “Tab, this is not a joke, this is life or death. I need you to do everything I say.” Our food was ready, we tipped the chef and left, heading back towards the hostel. “Tabitha, breathe.” we ducked into the alley and ran, hearing footsteps behind us and a high pitched groaning that I knew belonged to the girls. “Go left.” but I pulled her right, seeing the girls dash to their left. We kept running until we came upon an empty building to hide in. I put Godiva down and scanned the small area, it was like a warehouse with tons of empty crates everywhere.   
“Now what?” Tabby asked.  
“Help me move some of these crates in front of the door.” after we made the blockade we all sat in the corner of the room. “My translator is still off Tabitha. Your friends speak English.”   
“No one from here speaks English.”  
“Then maybe they’re not from here?” the more I thought about it, the worse the dread in the pit of my stomach got. “We just gotta wait it out here tonight and we’ll go the fuck home in the morning and sort this all out.”   
“I’m sorry about this, Duncan. I just knew you’re always on trips so I thought this would be fun for us.”  
“Tabitha, you didn’t follow any fucking travel rules!”  
“They’re barely rules! There’s no punishment for not following them!”  
“The punishment is you goddamn die, Tab! You haven’t followed a single rule so far! You took your dog, your level four guide to the Hollow. She can’t do shit in the fucking Hollow, Tab. Godiva is a level nine and I was still terrified in the Hollow! You came here without knowing anything about this place, by yourself, made friends with Locals, dragged me into this! Tabitha, what if I didn’t come? Yeah, I’ve been to hundreds of planes, legal and not, but I don’t just blindly go into things!” she had her face in her hands and I knew she was crying “Tabitha, you told me this was a vacation. I have no weapons, no emergency tools!” I didn’t feel like anymore yelling and I sat down tiredly. “I’m all for a wild trip, but this is dangerous. We can’t even call for help because we’re undocumented! Because you didn’t want to pay the safety fee.”   
“I’m sorry…” she whimpered  
“Let’s just get some sleep.”

I didn’t know what time it was, but we all awoke to an ungodly noise coming from our phones. I didn’t want to look, so I turned away from my phone.  
“This is not a test. Due to a hazardous unknown being travelling through the planes, all Embassies, Officer’s Stations, Research Facilities,and other areas of travel will be shut down until further notice.” I sat up as Tabitha continued reading “That was two hours ago.”  
“So...we’re stuck here unless we can find a gateway home.” her slow nodding only infuriated me and I finally lashed out. “Tabitha where are we, really?”   
“Sapphire Hills.”  
“Tabitha, I’ve been to Sapphire Hills. Sapphire Hills is a friendly plane. Sapphire Hills is three planes back from the Hollow, we are past the fucking Hollow, Tabitha! Where are we?”  
“I don’t know!” she was sobbing now. My phone’s GPS was no help as I finally got my answer.  
“My GPS says void. Do you know what that means?” she shook her head “We’re in an uncharted plane. Meaning; there’s no research on this place. Meaning; we are absolutely fucked until we can get back home!”


End file.
